Category Archives: Ghost Post Series

There are 65 million refugees on our planet. We are currently facing the worst displacement crisis since the second world war, and America has decided to turn away people who are fleeing their homes in search of a better life. When I read Brad Hagen’s reaction to the temporary ban on travelers and immigrants in seven Muslim countries, I had to wonder if it’s possible to encourage people to learn and explore the ways of other cultures and religions without submitting to anger. Brad’s self-directed pursuit of understanding Iranian culture moves me to believe a more inclusive world is possible.

Iran in America

By Brad Hagen

Partly due to my own curiosity, and partly from being immersed in a community of Iranians at a young age, I’ve had a long standing love for Iranian culture- from its history and artistic traditions to the contemporary aesthetic of Persian pop culture, fashion, and the fascinating events that have shaped/are shaping the Iranian identity. I’ve been planning a two week tour of Iran for a while now. I’ve been doing a ton of research, making an itinerary, contacting a plethora of tour agencies and private tour guides, and taking Persian lessons. I am SO incredibly disappointed that this will no longer be a possibility since the Iranian government, in response to Trump’s insane ‘Muslim-ban’ (that excludes Saudi Arabia, the biggest funder/source of terrorism, as well as countries which he has business ties to) is not allowing US citizens into the country.

Immeasurably worse than my own inability to visit Iran is the situation of the over one million Iranian-Americans that after having endured legally emigrating to a new country now find themselves isolated from loved ones back in Iran. It is extremely frustrating that Iranians are continuously used as political fodder to push conservative agendas and drum up defensive, militaristic agendas, especially since they are a population which has a surprising enthusiasm for Americans and American culture. Part of that enthusiasm is because SO many Iranians live here in the US. The large Iranian population in America has created millions of family ties between Iran and the US and allowed for Iranian popular culture to resettle, primarily in LA, meaning a lot of music and other facets of contemporary Iranian identity are created and exported from the US.

Sadly, Iranians are viewed through the lens of events that happened in 1979, and the vast majority of Americans are entirely oblivious of what led to the so-called Islamic revolution and establishment of the current political system in Iran. America, which is so proud of liberating itself from a king to establish the first democracy, orchestrated a coup to overthrow Iran’s first democracy in 1953 when the democratically elected president Mossadegh decided to nationalize Iran’s oil industry and redirect profits to the Iranian people. America then put in place a KING (note the hypocrisy) that was beholden to American corporate and military interests- often at the expense of his own people. America responded to the 1979 revolution against the American-backed government by fueling the war and bloodshed between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, selling massive amounts of weapons to both sides to create weakened, vulnerable, (and oil-rich) states. It has since crippled everyday Iranian people with sanctions, and now labels them as potential terrorists from the “axis of evil.”

To be clear, the Iranian people living in the US have never committed a religiously/ideologically inspired attack against Americans WHATSOEVER. People need to look at history as a whole, and start viewing Mulsim-majority countries in a fresh way. The frustration felt by many in these countries is not some religiously-inspired insanity or macho-tribal-jealousy of America’s power. These are complex, multi-faceted, modern people with depth, ability, and the right to be self-determining. I’ve allowed myself to be the only American in large gatherings of Persians repeatedly from the age of 12 to age 23, working at the Persian Culture conference in Chicago, to age 28 when I went to the Greater KC Norooz concert. In the beginning it was awkward but repeatedly allowing that experience of vulnerability in a group I didn’t initially identify with has been healing. As I was met with love and friendship and exposed to new things my sense of self has grown to incorporate a culture and group of people that conventional wisdom would have me fear.

Allowing this vulnerability is the only way to truly overcome prejudice and ignite the empathy and emotional investment in other groups of people necessary to deeply care about their well being. So, until I can go to Iran, thank you to all the Iranian friends I’ve had who have always responded with such kindness and inclusion towards me, and encouraged my interest in their culture.

Welcome to my Ghost Post series, an occasional divide from the usual content that tackles subject matter I want to make discussion room for. This post comes from Kansas City poet and lecturer Rhiannon Dickerson, who had a powerful reaction to this year’s election cycle controversy and is a general badass feminist with a strong voice. Her personal experience of sexism and abuse struck me as an important topic to make available to a wide readership, given the distance we still have to travel to make this kind of story a thing of the past.

Every Woman I Know

By Rhiannon Dickerson

Driving to the store this weekend, my daughters and I were listening to the local news when we heard the audio of Trump boasting about sexually assaulting a woman. I quickly turned off the radio, parked, and went into the store. As we navigated the aisles for my soon-to-be 10-year old daughter, Isabel’s birthday, deciding between emoji party cups or princess cups, I was only half-present, preoccupied with what my daughters heard on the radio, and the conversation I’d need to have. Earlier this summer, we all watched Hillary accept the Democratic nomination, and it was Isabel’s enthusiasm for Chelsea, and Hillary that, for the first time in this election, I felt inspired. She watched their speeches closely. She listened to powerful women confidently espouse their views, and their experiences, and she was moved to tears. It was seeing her see these women that made me fully realize the importance of this moment historically.

We headed back out to the car, our cart full of pre-teen party goods. I wanted to talk to the girls alone—in a safe space without men. And I was conflicted—I didn’t want them to feel scared, but I wanted them to know there’s always danger around us as women, as girls. I turned around in my seat and I told them what sexual assault meant. We practiced saying, “No” firmly, and without any explanation. We practiced saying, “My body. My rules.” I steadied myself with every “No.” But the thing is we all know those words won’t protect us. I felt powerless as I put on a brave front. I kept thinking about this app I saw on Facebook earlier in the day. It’s an app you can use as you walk to your car—Safe Trek, I think. You simply open the app, and keep your finger on the icon until you reach your car, and then you text in a preset code. If you release the icon and don’t enter your code in 10 seconds, police are notified. We aren’t safe even walking to our cars, I thought. We’re not safe anywhere.

When I was a young girl, my mom taught me about the “oh-oh” feeling, and what to do if anyone ever made me feel that way. My mother was a survivor of sexual assault from her family, from strangers, and from her partners. As women this is part of our everyday lives. Every day. Every woman. Fear, violence, casual sexism, misogyny, looking over our shoulders as we walk down the street, as we walk to our cars, the fact that statistically speaking, we’re in spaces with rapists every day unbeknownst to us.

My first memory is from when I was 3 or so. I was sitting at the top of the stairs, my baby brother asleep in the next room. It was late at night, and I was supposed to be in bed, but I was listening to the sound of my mother being beaten downstairs. I was only 3. I was powerless. I felt powerless. Years later, in a different house, after my mother left him, he showed up one morning intent on getting in. He tried to break down the door with my brother’s bike, and I was relieved he hadn’t used mine, and ashamed I felt relieved. His girlfriend sat in the car in front of our house. In my memory, she’s checking her lipstick in the mirror. We left through the back door, my mother’s open robe fluttering in the wind as we ran to the fence and she pushed us over. We moved in silence. It was a wooden slat fence and it was so high I can’t imagine how she made it over. Our neighbor—whom we’d never met—was startled when we fell into her yard. She was signing paperwork with the Orkin man who gave us coloring books with pictures of cockroaches while my mother called the police.

When I was 27, I was strangled (it’s still painful to write that word). My boyfriend, someone I loved and trusted, someone I knew since I was 10 years old, 6’3” 280 pounds pressed me to the floor, his hands on my throat, my fingers struggling to scratch his face, or push him off, or gouge his eyes. For years part of me was still lying on the basement floor trying to breathe, trying to leave.

And it’s every woman I know. It’s every woman you know.

By the time I was 16, six of my closest friends and family had been sexually assaulted by men they knew. I’m 35 now, and I can’t count the women anymore. And we don’t talk about it except sometimes when we’ve had enough to drink to let the stop out of our throats, to let the scream out of lungs, to move past the shame to rage. We don’t talk about it. So when you call it “lewd” or “crass” or “locker room banter”, you create a safe space for misogyny, you perpetuate its existence, diminish its reality, and side with the abuser. You leave me on the basement floor trying to understand what happened, what I did, and what I should have done differently.

***

People are asking: are we normalizing sexual assault in these conversations? No. These conversations demonstrate that it is already normalized. Violence against women is accepted, or ignored and implicitly condoned, sometimes encouraged, and often sexualized. It’s part of the fabric of America, part of the fabric of patriarchal oppression, part of what it means to be a woman in the world. They call it locker room banter because the locker room is the apex of American masculinity, and because masculinity has always required demonstrating power over women, because sexual violence against women affirms masculinity, because patriarchy has never valued women, but does value violence against them. The locker room is the acme of American masculinity—but these values are evident in the board room, the war zone, school room, golf course, and now, the presidential stage. These values are evident in the constitution when they say “all men are created equal” and didn’t mean women—because, well, women have always been dehumanized and objectified.

We’ve never been treated equally. And I’m a white ciswoman. Many folks experience this exponentially more than I have. Misogyny against women of color, against transwomen—is excused, dismissed, ignored and justified far more often. Because culturally, historically, and legally we’ve dehumanized our sisters of color with greater potency and frequency than their white, or cis counterparts. We’ve come so far, I want to think. My daughters feel empowered by possibility. We have a major party female presidential candidate. But standing next to her on that stage is a self-confessed sexual predator (and let’s not forget, a racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, narcissist) and the crowd is cheering for him; they’re applauding. The most terrifying thing is that that stage reflects every room in America. Every step towards progress is met by a creepy, powerful man who gives you the “oh-oh” feeling as he stalks the stage behind you, as he demands that you should be ashamed of yourself, as he talks over you, and he devalues your humanity, and ridicules your ability. Every woman I know. Every stage we’re on. He is some of the men we know. Men you know. Men we love. Men we sleep with, and men we teach. Our grandfathers. Our sons. Our presidential candidates. They are everywhere, and it is terrifying.

I watched the town hall debate, and I cried into my hands to stifle the sobbing—where the hell was that trigger warning? I felt like I was at the top of the staircase again listening to my mother being beaten, listening to women everywhere try to muffle their screams so they don’t wake up the children, running away at night with nothing—no bags, no shoes, even—in an attempt to flee before he wakes. I felt like I was in the police car again deciding not to press charges. I felt threatened and disempowered and fucking scared. I’ll be having long talks with my son about consent, about respect, about sexuality, and masculinity. I’ll remind my daughters that our bodies are ours, and that we live in a world that wants to take our power away, that “No” is a word that doesn’t need explanation.

But, men—this shit is on you. Have you excused or justified or minimized violence against women? Have you taken the side of the abuser? Have you laughed at “locker room banter”? Have you made rape jokes? Harassed women on the street? Have you wondered what she was wearing or what she said before he hit her? Have you blamed women for the violence against them? Have you softened the edges of assault by calling it “lewd language”? Have you created a safe space for violent abusers? Have you kept quiet when you should have stood up? Are you part of rape culture?

Dig deep, y’all, because this isn’t new, and it isn’t going away. It’s every woman I know, and some of the men, too.